World, Writing, Wealth discussion

Some master writing the first draft of a book in a few weeks. Yet, not all the parts are 'equal' and some require a little more effort than the others.
In the current market - the beginning should be 'commercial'. Some say - take the best, most exciting part of the book and put it first and then attach all the rest. Some have difficulties with the beginning, daunted by the grandeur of the task at hand.
If we are talking about series, the ending shall close the plot line at hand while simultaneously opening the window into the next installment.

And in between the 1-st and the last, the middle also needs to be sufficiently exciting and urging a reader to finish reading.

So gambit, middlegame and endgame all have their nuances, where each author might sweat a little differently -:)

Which part do you find the most difficult to pull off and why?

It all depends on the project. I don't have a problem specifically with certain parts of a story in general. Certain stories I'll know exactly how I want it to open and may have trouble with the nuances of the conclusions, with other stories it will be the other way around. But I would say when it comes to trouble with an ending, it's not the end per se, ie. that final chapter, paragraph, or sentence, it's writing the climax in a way that fulfills the vision in my head.

For me, it was the end. My main character is an antihero and I kept going between two different endings. In one, he dies while in the other he survives. It took me more than a month to finally decide that dying or not didn't matter at all and let the reader decide for himself, in his mind.

For me, there are two main things. The first is getting balance. If the idea is the book is about something, I have to be careful not to get obsessed with it. The second is to make sure I put the right sort of scenes in the right place. In my current project, I have everything going along nicely, I think, except that, being a thriller, I need to put action scenes in at reasonably frequent intervals, but how frequently? Usually, this has not been a problem, but this time the main part of the plot involves hacking, which means too many people are in offices which is hardly thrilling. I also tend to have a rather large number of characters, and I think that is going to happen here as well, which in turn brings the problem of balance between them.

Like my chess game, it's my endgame that suffers. I find that I often have a lot of loose ends to tie up after the story's climax and it seems to take me too long to wind things down to a conclusion. I guess I just don't like "He wins the battle and everyone lives happily ever after," as an ending.

In this order.

[1] Ending - easiest to define and write - just pull everything together where the early narrative logic is now just playing out.

[2] Beginnings - mid level difficult. need to setup correctly to establish believable character motivations and story arcs.

[3] Middles - where I sweat and burn my brain cells to oblivion playing off the various motivations, choices, & actions of characters with effing multi-level conflicts with each other - total effing pain in the a%$#@e. (... sulks in corner - "and no, I'm not coming out" ...) All done while maintaining reader interest and motivation to turn the next page.

Hence while I'm blissfully happy right now as I close in on the last 10% of my current book.

P.S.

Don't ask me about October, November, December 2016.

These days readers seem to want action from the first page - never mind about setting the scene or easing into it! Seriously though - writing is the easy bit - it's the editing, formatting and promoting that are really hard.

Hi Rita,

Agreed. Those things are hard too. Although I have formatting down pat now.

Rita wrote: "it's the editing... "

Agreed. Editing seems to take up most of the time devoted to "writing." However, though editing is difficult, it's also the most enjoyable part (eventually). When you can look at your story and be proud of what it is and that you're the one who wrote it, that's the fruit of editing.

It's like Justice Louise Brandeis said: "There is no great writing, only great rewriting."

I'm glad you enjoy it Daniel! I'm talking the type of editing that involves a missing question mark, comma, typo not rewriting. Then there's the template formatting when for some reason a line jumps down to the next page and has to be physically returned to it's correct location!

So what's most difficult in writing?

Ignoring editing an d marketing - getting out of a block and fighting pressure for a sequel when there is no plot....

Everyone has a story to tell; however, not everyone posesses the skillset to tell their story in such a manner that others will find it interesting and entertaining.

The difficult part is setting aside one's ego long enough to realize and admit that before beginning to write, one should first master the technical tools of language: spelling, grammar, punctuation, sentence/paragraph structure, and effective narration techniques.

Attempting to proofread one's own work is ineffective. The brain tends to see what it wants to see, not what it is actually seeing. After the initial draft is complete, one should obtain professional copy & conceptual editing services to evaluate, critique, and offer advice, then re-write as often as necessary to produce the best possible final draft.

Very few novice writers ever achieve commercial success or even notoriety within this extremely competitive field. That said; some have. There is no reason why you might not eventually become one of them. I wish you success.

This is a great article about one of my favorite authors: Larry Brown. He taught himself to write and became a success after many rejections.

https://lithub.com/larry-browns-long-...

Once I have the inciting ideas I work quickly until I have about 30 pages of notes and about 20 pages of intro. Then the book will sit in the bottom drawer for a while - sometimes years - until it bubbles back up to my creative surface and demands attention. Then I'll work fast again, until I get to what you might lazily call Act 3.

From that point I have to think about it again for a while as my plots tend to be complex and I have to make sure I'm tying all the threads together in the most satisfying (and exciting) way.

The pace always rathchets up towards the end and there are always surprise revelations and a twist or two. These need very careful consideration.

Funnily enough, I always think I know the conclusion as I'm generating the draft, but I always think of something much better when I get there. That tends to be the most satisfying part - discovering for myself the surprise ending that was already lying dormant in the bones of the story.

The middle is most difficult for me. The beginning is pretty easy when I have a premise I'm excited about, and I love crossing the finish line and wrapping it all up. But keeping the early energy going throughout is the trick for me.